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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25440844">The Way She Was</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/quakinginmystylishboots/pseuds/quakinginmystylishboots'>quakinginmystylishboots</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Season/Series 07, Skye meets Quake, Time Travel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:41:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,659</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25440844</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/quakinginmystylishboots/pseuds/quakinginmystylishboots</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Another day, another decade. The Agents have jumped to 2004 to protect a certain young hacker.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie &amp; Skye | Daisy Johnson, Melinda May &amp; Skye | Daisy Johnson, Phil Coulson &amp; Skye | Daisy Johnson, Skye | Daisy Johnson &amp; Daniel Sousa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>109</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So, yeah, this can't really fit anywhere in S7 but assume most, if not all, the major plot points up until 7x08 have indeed happened. I really just wanted Skye to meet Quake and the rest of the team to meet young Skye. Oh, it's the first time I attempt anything longer than a (short) one-shot and I have no idea what I'm doing xD. </p>
<p>Marvel owns everything except the mistakes.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“So... I'm a superhero or something?!”</p>
<p>Daisy would have readily admitted that her sense of bizarre had undergone a severe readjustment ever since she had joined S.H.I.E.L.D. Among other things, she had gained superpowers, fought identical robotic copies of her friends, met a fiery-headed demon, and traveled through space and time. Twice.</p>
<p>Even by their lofty standards, however, this was ridiculous.</p>
<p>“How did it happen? Do I get bitten by a radioactive bug? Genetic mutation? Oh! Am I an alien?”</p>
<p>Daisy glanced back at her teenage self, all wide-eyed excitement and an endless stream of questions, and sighed.</p>
<p>“Could you stop pestering us for a second? We need to find a safe place to hide and then we can talk”.</p>
<p>In the driver's seat, Melinda May snorted. </p>
<p>“Now you know how it feels”, her former S.O. said, smirking. </p>
<p>The fact that May openly showing emotions didn't immediately flood her with relief was all the more proof of the kind of day Daisy was having.</p>
<p>And it all had started...well, as well as it could be expected when you were waging a temporal war against alien robots that wanted to erase you from the timeline. </p>
<p>After the jump to 2004, they had located her younger self quickly and set up a shadowing protocol to protect her. According to the plan, only Sousa – a man she wouldn't be meeting until a week ago  and who had had no influence in her life until that point – would interact face to face if the need arose. They were ready to neutralize whatever attempt the Chronicoms were about to make on her life and maybe they'll even get the chance to pick up some tastier food than what the Zephyr One was currently stocked with. She was kind of looking forward to introducing Daniel to modern-ish day tacos.</p>
<p>Except the Chronicoms had been one step ahead. Again.</p>
<p>So now they were driving through Hell's Kitchen, looking for a safe house that hopefully wasn't compromised, with her younger self in tow, who had just witnessed her dismantling a squad of Chronicom hunters with her powers. Because her life couldn't <i>possibly</i> get more complicated.</p>
<p>“One of my old safe houses is two blocks from here. Completely off the books and even Coulson didn't know about it. It should be plenty secure” May said, turning their gray van in an alley in between an Indian take-out and some electronics shop. Meanwhile, younger Daisy – Skye – was still talking.</p>
<p>“C'mon, you could just tell me. We have met each other and the universe hasn't blinked out of existence or exploded so it's probably safe. Parallel reality, right? I mean, you're blond – she paused for a second, contemplating the fact, as if that development was on the same scale of gaining superpowers – whatever happened to you might never happen to me. And it won't affect your future, just mine, so it's really my decision. And I wanna know!”</p>
<p>Daisy chuckled darkly, because that made more sense than the brain-splitting explanations Jemma had been giving them.</p>
<p>“The less you know, the better”, she replied, following May through a door into the building and choosing to ignore the older agent's eye-roll. Her younger self promptly eye-rolled, too.</p>
<p>“Oh, c'mooonn...now you'll tell me you have to abide by the temporal prime directive or something”.</p>
<p>“Skye – May started, having clearly decided that leaving the adult side of the conversation to Daisy wasn't getting them anywhere – it's really important that you set aside your curiosity for now. I promise you, we will tell you what we can. Later”.</p>
<p>Skye huffed and pouted, but nodded assent. How about that. Daisy eyed May with renewed appreciation and the familiar pang of what ifs.</p>
<p>The safe-house was a small-sized apartment located on the third floor of a relatively old building, its most distinctive feature a purple neon sign that partially blocked the view from both windows in the living+kitchenette area. It was sparsely furnished, as Daisy had expected, but homier than she would have guessed. Putting one of their equipment bags on the coffee table, Daisy glanced back at her younger self, edging silently near the door, taking the apartment in and, for the first time since they met, looking unsure. Daisy knew that vulnerability well. Before she could say something, May spoke:</p>
<p>"Come in, Skye. The cupboards are stocked with canned food if you're hungry, the bathroom is behind that door on the left and the bedroom's that way".</p>
<p>The teen stepped less timidly toward the living area, clutching her backpack. Even after these many years, Daisy knew exactly what it contained: her beat-up laptop, the hula girl, a purple hoodie, some spare underwear, and the copy of Slaughterhouse 5 one of her better foster moms - an English teacher who sheltered “problem” kids during the summer - had given her.</p>
<p>"You better call Mack, update him on the situation" May told Daisy, before turning her attention back to the girl she had been. “I'm going to fix us some dinner – she announced – and then we'll talk”.</p>
<p>***********</p>
<p>“This is <i>exactly</i> what we agreed couldn't happen.”</p>
<p>Mack came out loud, clear and cranky through the secure connection she had set up, piggybacking over the NSA's satellite network – yay for 2000s technology – to hide it from present day S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Chronicoms both. Daisy tried to keep her own irritation in check. It's not like she had wanted it to happen any more than he did.</p>
<p>“The Chronicoms didn't leave us with options, Director.”</p>
<p>“How did she know you were, well, her?”</p>
<p>“They told her”. </p>
<p>Mack swore. “Making sure to mess things up for us even if they failed, uh? And she saw you use your powers?”</p>
<p>“Yep.”</p>
<p>“How much?”</p>
<p>“I dismantled three hunters and knocked down two others. May disabled a sixth and I know that impressed her, too”. The first time Daisy had witnessed what she used to call May's “ninja know-how”, she had thought it was the most awesome thing ever. And she had been 23 and fully aware of the existence of superheroes, let alone amazingly badass secret agents.</p>
<p>“We keep making waves” Mack grumbled.</p>
<p>Daisy felt like screaming. They had been riding a freaking Tsunami since the 1970s, the Chronicoms weren't playing by the same rules as theirs and maybe they shouldn't followed them, either. They could worry about the consequences when their enemy was defeated once and for all. This, however, was not the time to argue their overall strategy.</p>
<p>“Coulson destroyed their ship, these must be stragglers left behind but they seemed to have a lot of manpower. Or, robot power, whatever. If we can locate their base of operations and take them out, she should be safe”. Relatively speaking, because Daisy had a clear memory of how very <i>not</i> safe her years on the run from the foster system had been, but she had made it through and this Skye would, too.</p>
<p>On his end, Mack hummed in agreement. “Enoch is trying to identify Chronicom energy signatures in the New York area. I'm sending Yo-Yo and Deke back to the warehouse where they ambushed you, maybe they can pick up some clues. Coulson and Sousa are following another lead. Something will turn up. - he said confidently - Once we have a target, we'll rendezvous back on the Z1. In the meantime, stay with, er, yourself. And Tremors? She already knows far too much. Don't add to it.”</p>
<p>“Copy that.”</p>
<p>Daisy terminated the connection and groaned. Easy for Mack to say. She was the one who had to come up with an explanation her teenage self would accept, yet was as vague and non factual as possible.</p>
<p>Standing up, she tried to remember when exactly had she watched Terminator, wondering if making herself into the John Connor of the piece would count as a ripple or a wave.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Apparently tacos started to become pretty popular outside of the Mexican community in the 1940s, so Sousa should definitely be familiar with them, especially since he was based in California for years.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>May hadn't missed the flash of interest at the mention of food and didn't need her empath's ability to tell her that Skye's initial excitement had started to be replaced by wariness. The veteran agent eyed the kid critically. Shorter, skinnier despite a more rounded face framed by darker hair, she reminded her of the time Daisy had been on the run from S.H.I.E.L.D., though the clothes had more colors – a green military jacket over a white t-shirt, faded jeans and a purple beanie – and this kid wouldn't be destroying buildings or her own bones anytime soon. </p><p>During the mission prep, Daisy had recounted how, at this point in time, she had just run away from a group home and had been squatting in some condemned building with other homeless kids. “It  was a bit screwed up for a while... eventually I started making fake I.D.s...that's how I made the money for the van, but that will be a couple of years from now”. Daisy's attempts to downplay her hardships had done nothing to quell the annoying wave of protectiveness rolling off both Sousa and Deke. Well, Deke's had annoyed her. May felt far more lenient toward Sousa's. The man had permanently earned a spot on her good side after pulling her protégé out of one of her closest calls yet. </p><p>If the curiosity, the irreverence and the growing uneasiness currently tumbling off Skye were all familiar, May was surprised by the intensity of the directionless anger that felt wrapped around everything else the kid was feeling. There was also no trace of Daisy's supreme self-assurance, but that was to be expected. Fifteen years of experience, combat training and superpowers separated the woman from the girl. </p><p>Watching her with a mix of suspicion and expectancy, Skye sat down on one of the kitchenette stools. May knew what was coming.</p><p>“Are superpowers, like, common in the future? 'Cause those were some crazy ninja moves you pulled.”</p><p>“Skye.” </p><p>The girl rolled her eyes but quieted. For half a minute.</p><p>“Those were robots. I saw the electronic bits when future-superhero-me smashed them. They're after me so I can't become her, right?”</p><p>“Skye...”</p><p>“One of them said as much, when they grabbed me, okay? Pointed at her and said they were making sure she wasn't going to be, all ominous and stuff. Wow. This is like Terminator, but I'm both Sarah and John! Hey, you're not a robot, are you? The good robot fighting alongside the humans?”</p><p>May fixed her with one of her patented glares. The kid shrank back but wasn't deterred in the slightest. That was familiar, too.</p><p>“Ok, sorry! Until now you had, like, one expression and I saw you kicked the crap out of a robot with your bare hands. Easy mistake to make, right?”</p><p>Skye bit her lip and lowered her eyes, suddenly sheepish. “But...thank you. For saving me, I mean. I should have said it sooner”. </p><p>May just nodded, a surge of affection making it through the fog her own emotions had felt enveloped in since she had woken up in 1931. It was slowly lifting, but still numbing everything. </p><p>Skye had fallen silent again. Delayed fear, the <i>“I almost died today!”</i> quickly swatted down but not quite quieted hit the veteran agent's senses, until curiosity won over again.</p><p>“So you guys do this a lot? Time travelling and fighting robots?”</p><p>“These days.”</p><p>“And you are...friends?”</p><p>May didn't miss the hopeful note in the question. And the yearning was almost overwhelming.</p><p>“We are” she replied cautiously, hoping Skye didn't gather the courage to ask her what she really wanted. Luckily, Daisy finally emerged from the bedroom, a slight scowl etched on her features, distracting her younger self. The microwave beeped, and May busied herself filling up their plates.</p><p>“Everyone's out looking for leads” Daisy informed her “Mack says we should stay put for the time being”. May felt Skye watching their interactions very carefully.</p><p>“So, I guess we promised you an explanation” Daisy began, and the way she braced herself to spin  whatever story she and Mack must have concocted was almost comical.</p><p>“Don't bother, I already figured it all out. You just need to tell me how I get superpowers because those would be super handy, especially now that murderbots from the future want to kill me so I can't save the world or whatever”. </p><p>Surprising herself, May laughed. “Don't look at me. This is all you”.</p><p>*********</p><p>“Well, that didn't help us much”, said Daniel Sousa, with a last glance to the grim looking building he and Phil Coulson had just exited.</p><p>“No, but at least we know they don't have access to their Predictor's knowledge anymore - Coulson replied - since they have to hunt for leads the same way we do. That levels the playing field. And we actually have inside knowledge they don't have, for once”.</p><p>“Unless those guys asking were really FBI agents” Sousa countered, falling in step with Coulson. </p><p>The older agent – in an mechanical body, and Daniel would be lying if learning that hadn't fazed him – smiled with fondness. “The only time Daisy was caught hacking, it was on purpose. And you know as well as I do that the FBI doesn't ordinarily go after runaway kids. No, it was them. And if we can figure out the identities they've stolen, we'll be closer to find them”.</p><p>That made sense, as much as anything had lately. Sousa looked around the street while they made their way to their vehicle, taking in the 2000s. The car ride had been bewildering, New York so different and yet still somehow familiar after almost 60 years since he had been a resident. </p><p>“You know, I'm a bit disappointed. I had thought there would be flying cars by now”. Coulson gave him a knowing look but didn't comment. “It seems like the most creativity has gone into fashion choices” Sousa continued dryly, noticing a young man with baggy clothes that could have fit someone twice the size. </p><p>“So, I gather that 'hacking' has to do with computers but probably doesn't involve chopping them into pieces” Sousa said, climbing into their black SUV, one arched eyebrow that framed his words as a question. </p><p>“Hackers are people who are exceptionally well versed in computers' languages and can break into systems they're not supposed to have access to – Coulson explained – Daisy is one of the best. The best I have seen. Her hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D. is how we met her”. </p><p>“The one time she was caught?”, Sousa asked, latching on the previous morsel of information.</p><p>The other agent nodded, a proud half smile lighting up his eyes. “Not our doing, as it turned out. You should ask her, once things have settled. It's quite the interesting story”. </p><p>“I like that you say 'once'.” </p><p>“Things” were extremely unsettled at the moment, in Sousa's opinion. The way this team seemed to be taking almost everything in stride was both reassuring and frighting. He'd hate to see what they had dealt with previously that had made them this blase when faced with Time Travel and mechanical aliens. Or maybe they were like him, just good at hiding their bewilderment. </p><p>“I don't know that Agent Johnson would appreciate me prying” he said instead, choosing not to voice his bigger concerns. Coulson gave him another look that said <i>I know more than you do</i>. “She might just make an exception”. Before he could unpack the statement, their communication devices came to life.</p><p>“Coulson, we found something – the slightly accented voice of Agent Rodriguez sounded less warm through the comms than it did in person – one of the Chronicoms Daisy quaked apart didn't self-destruct fully. Deke says we might still be able to extract some information. We're taking the remains to the Zephyr. How's your errand going?”.</p><p>“Less promising. Heading to the secondary objective now. We'll keep you posted”.</p><p>Fastening the seat belt, Agent Sousa put his game face on. Another long day lay ahead.</p>
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